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LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN DIVING BIRDS. 221 
and these “ Arctic Highlanders” could not have persisted here as the most 
northern people of the world. No trading station would have been established 
by the Danes; one of the chief incentives to some of Peary’s and other expedi- 
tions of the coast would have been missing. The grass slopes about the rook- 
eries, the luxuriant herbage being due to their dung, support the largest num- 
bers of hare and ptarmigan, and probably afforded the richest pastures for the 
earibou before the introduction of firearms effected their extermination from 
some of the areas along the coast. The burgomaster gull and the gyrfalcon 
feed upon the dovekie throughout the summer and rear their young upon them 
too. The fox, burgomaster gull, and gyrfalcon are the chief natural enemies of 
the dovekie; in additon, the Eskimo, the raven, and perhaps some of the water 
animals prey upon the birdlets; the whitewhale, so the Eskimo say, catches 
and eats many. 
The fox preys not only upon the bird but upon the eggs.as well. Through 
the nesting season and while the young are growing the foxes frequent the 
talus slopes, gorging themselves and laying in their winter stores. Lurking 
pehind a rock until a flock alights near and then rushing upon the birds, 
stealthily creeping upon a flock and pouncing upon them, or crawling into the 
holes after them—in one way or another the fox gets all he wants. And the 
auklets recognize him as an enemy, for at his approach, if they detect him, 
they are off in confusion and haste. 
The most terrible and persistent of the dovekie’s enemies is the burgomaster 
gull, for the only refuge from him is a hole in the rocks. Hven the swift 
gyrfalcon that pursues them relentlessly in the air is not so inexorable, for 
from him they can escape in the water. When a burgomaster singles out a 
dovekie as his prey the only hope for the auklet is to escape into a hole in the 
rocks, or by a quick dash into a flock succeed in diverting the pursuit to some 
other luckless dovekie. The burgomaster displays much agility and skill in 
following up the evolutions of the frightened dovekie, and often catches him on 
the wing. When the dovekie dives into the water the burgomaster hovers over 
him like an aeroplane over a submarine, following his underwater course, and 
the moment he comes up striking at him to force him under without a chance 
for rest or breath, repeating this until the little fellow is exhaused, when his 
big tormentor seizes him and makes a meal of him in a single gulp. The 
dovekies live in deadly terror of the gull and gyrfalcon, and whenever one of 
these big birds sails along the cliffs it is the signal for a panic-stricken flight 
of the dovekies. The raven is not so feared because not so greedy, and be- 
eause he likes a varied diet, and does not bother them so much. Teedly- 
ingwah, a reliable Eskimo, says he has seen white whales catch many dove- 
kies and eat them, and that he has found the whole birds in the stomachs of 
the whale. 
The importance of the dovekie as a food bird to the Eskimos of 
northern Greenland is well illustrated by the following quotation 
from Mr. Figgins’s (1899) notes: 
To me the dovekie was the most interesting as well as the most numerous 
bird observed, and it is surprising that they survive the persecution to which 
they are subjected. During years when game is scarce, the natives depend 
almost entirely on the dovekie for food, and they are caught by the thousands 
and stored in great piles for winter use. Without the dovekie the little tribe 
of north Greenland Hskimos would long since have perished of hunger. The 
ground about their villages is thickly strewn with the bones of the dovekie, 
giving abundant proof of the millions which have.been. devoured, When on 
